


Mountains High, Valley Low

by missmuffet



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Childhood, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmuffet/pseuds/missmuffet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has always wondered how his dear Captain turned into the man he knows today. John won't ever tell him why or how. </p><p>Drabble series. Cuts back and forth between his childhood and present day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jealousy

"I didn't ask to be born with this way!" John has never heard her voice so broken, so quiet. At any other time of day, during the middle of any other kind of confrontation, her hisses would have been like a rattlesnake giving it's warning before it struck. There was a power, a passion and determination in everything she did.

But not this. Not now.

The world split into two equal chunks; one bright and beautiful as it always had been, the other covered in shadows.The first was all he knew and held dear, his world, only one block wide. The second was clouded in doubt and everything he didn't understand. The middle ground was crumbling, fastly turning into a viscious no-man's land as he watched the verbal shrapnel and bullets sore overhead. The young and inexperienced rarely made good fighters, their father had always told them that, and now John could see that for himself as he stood like a doe caught in the headlights of an eighteen wheeler. He wasn't in their kitchen anymore, he had forgotten he had come downstairs for a glass of water to soothe his stressed induced nightmare about the quiz he would be taking tomorrow; he was the trenches and noxious gas was quickly filling everything he could see.

Each party seemed to mentally have an outstretched hand towards him. Her with her sudden too-soft voice, looking as though she had been slapped when in fact he was no where near touching to her. Eyes cast down at the floor, shoulders hunched, ready to hug herself. Then there was him - tall, stern, and absolutely disgusted. "And I didn't ask for a dyke whore as a daughter."


	2. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is sick. John tends to him in the only way he knows how.

His hair is soft, messy and slicked forward with sweat. Hesitantly, John reaches out to run his hair along it, pulling the dark strands back in a slow motions. Like petting a cat, or stroking a child's head after a nightmare. "What are you doing?" he grumbles, voice strained from a nasty coughing fit.

"Calming you down," John answered. Silently, he noted the way Sherlock's arms trembled against the wall as the taller man relied on both that and John to keep him standing. He wasn't shocked to hear the puzzled sound his friend made. Sherlock Holmes was hardly the kind of man who had any real grasp on how 'proper' families functioned. (According to him, at least. John had slowly dawned on the conclusion that Mycroft was a much better brother than Sherlock let on.) The bathroom mirror catches Sherlock's confused expression. John sighed softly. "Me mum, used to do it to me," he answered at last, in the exact same fashion she would have spoken the words.

(Her hand, long and slender. Pink nails or a bright yellow if she allowed Harry to do them for her. Both females loved bright colors and their mother was no doubt where Harry picked up all her fussy, stylish and feminine traits. Not a timid woman by any means and completely against intolerance of the lifestyles of others. Freckles doted her arms and she would happily pass off a Crayola marker to either of her children when they were toddlers so they could 'connect the dots'. She would speak in a naturally rythmic fashion, full of giggles that John had inheirted and bright smiles both of her children shared. She never sang but she hummed; anything from lullabies to dance worthy jigs. She was perfect and happy and wonderful but she ended -- )

"Irish," Sherlock announced in his typical detached fashion.


	3. Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for suicide

"And what would you like to be when you grow up, John?"

He, well mannered although he wasn't soft spoken, almost sneered for being treated like such a baby. He hated that sweet tone adults used with him now, he hated the way they whispered about his family as he passed. He hated they way they tried to secretly send him looks of pity or kindness when they thought he wasn't looking. 'What a pity' and 'such a shame' had become his two least favorite sentences. If there was anything he had come to hate about living in a small, suburban town, it was how quickly word of anything out of the norm travelled.

"Not decided yet?"

A broken body, gorgeous in their Sunday best - ridiculous because they didn't go to church. Rough hands. Bright, perfect and ... gone. A sickening crack against the granite section of floor that surrounded a fire place that was never used. Blue where there should be pink. Red where there should be right. A discarded jumprope, unyielding with it's grip.

"... I want to be a doctor..."


	4. Betrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight reference to homophobia.

Harry is nearly a decade older than John. Despite this and being the perfect age to declare she was fresh out of uni, she still managed to act half of the age of her little brother. Loud, hyper and with a taste for the 'wrong sort of people'. She may as well have painted a giant target over her heart.

"Bitch," he repeated, without the proper venom most people would spit it out. Fourteen and still a sponge when it came to interactions with their father. While he didn't hold the glare his father had whenever Harry would 'accidentally' wander too close to home in order get a glimpse of her brother. "Freak of nature."

Harry doesn't cringe - only smiles, sincerely, warm and accepting. "Love you too, John."


	5. Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one is allowed to mistreat Harry. Not even Sherlock Holmes.

_"Excuse you?"_ High and heavy. Mightily offended. Her majesty in all her glory, all of what was left of a rapidly declining kingdom.

"Harry, don't start, for once, don't start..." Trapped, as always. Forever stuck in the middle, forever torn behind slamming his own head against the wall and his desire to just walk away from everything.

"Oh, _please._ Do you really think that he'd fine anything enjoyable in you? He's disappointed. Moderately ashamed, depending on the day. Afraid to see you for two long...." No inaccuracies, only misconceptions. The truth was meaningless without context. Nothing could probably exist in the word without it's binary opposite. Smug; not because of the clear offense across her face, only because they both confirmed that he was right. (He liked being right, he had been so disappointed when he misinterpreted Harry's gender.) Not even three words extra and -

_"Apologize. **Now.** "_

_  
_

Blinking. "What? Why on Earth - "

 _"Now, Sherlock._ She is _my sister_ and _so help me god,_ you _will_ treat her with _respect_."


End file.
